NASA chief Michael Griffin said the agency would be able to finish building "humanity's first really long-term outpost in space," the International Space Station (ISS), on time.

"I'm very confident that we will complete the assembly of the space station on schedule by 2010," he told reporters here.

"Atlantis was a terrific ship, in fact she gave us absolutely no problem at all in the entire mission," raved Commander Brent Jett as the six-person crew crossed the tarmac. "It was a pleasure to fly it, and it's a pleasure to be home."

The shuttle touched down at Kennedy Space Center at 6:21 am (1021 GMT) after a successful mission to resume construction of the orbiting ISS, the first such work on the half-finished space laboratory in more than four years.

"Welcome back. Congratulations on return," NASA communicator Tony Antonelli told the Atlantis crew as the shuttle rolled to a halt on the runway after traveling more than 4.9 million miles (7.9 million kilometers) in space.

"It's nice to be back," answered Jett.

Floating debris orbiting near Atlantis that had caused, along with a poor weather outlook, a one-day delay in the shuttle's return was a routine occurrence, the commander said at a post-landing news conference.

Asked whether the crew was worried about the debris, Jett said: "To be honest with you, actually we were not very concerned. In my experience on shuttle flights, you see a lot of things flying out of the payload bay.

"We just assume that whatever object we saw, had to come from the payload bay," he said.

The Atlantis mission was the third shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster that killed seven astronauts and the first to resume construction of the ISS, which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration hopes to complete before its three-shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.

The two previous shuttle flights were focused on improving safety.

The Atlantis's landing was delayed by 24 hours after several small, unidentified objects were discovered orbiting along with the shuttle. On closer inspection Wednesday, the objects were deemed to be objects lost by the shuttle during its maneuvers.

The inspection also checked for damage to Atlantis's heat shield, which was found to be in good shape.

Atlantis blasted off from Kennedy Space Center on September 9 after five delays over a two-week period, due first to a lightning strike and a looming tropical storm, and then technical glitches.

It docked at the space station two days later to install the first addition to the half-finished ISS since November 2002.

The astronauts used the station's robotic arm to attach a 16-tonne truss segment housing two solar arrays to the ISS.

Three spacewalks were needed to set up the system.

The unfurled solar arrays measure 240 feet (73 meters), and will ultimately provide a quarter of the outpost's power. They are to be activated during a Space Shuttle Discovery mission planned for mid-December, doubling the space station's current power capacity.

Atlantis undocked from the ISS on Sunday.

"This was one of the most complex missions that has ever been flown in space," said shuttle program manager Wayne Hale. "We have achieved a new record in assembling major components in a minimum number of space walks ... it's an outstanding effort."

When it is finished, the space station will be bigger than a five-bedroom house, with a cabin of 33,023 cubic feet (935 cubic meters), and will weigh approximately 450 tonnes.

NASA plans 15 more flights to complete construction of the ISS by 2010.

John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute, said the Atlantis mission was a "landmark. ... It restarts the assembly of the station, and it's an important first step in this long process.

"This is evidence that NASA has a very good chance of success in flying these assembly missions and probably will decide to go ahead with preparation for the Hubble (Space Telescope) servicing mission," Logsdon said in an interview with AFP.

Related Links
Space Shuttle News at Space-Travel.Com

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